Wikipedia:Peer review/Olivia Manning/archive1

Olivia Manning

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I'd be grateful for feedback on this article which I have been slowly working on for the last year. It is currently a good article, and received a very helpful review from User:Yllosubmarine, whose recommendations I have been seeking to address. [1] It would be nice to have other opinions; my ultimate plan is to submit this as a featured article candidate.--Slp1 (talk) 03:01, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is close to featured quality, methinks. It seems comprehensive, well-sourced, professionally written, well-illustrated, neutral, and stable. Some of its images need alt text; the lead is a bit too thin as it stands, and I have a short list of prose nitpicks. Otherwise this looks fine to me, and I enjoyed reading it. Manning was a most interesting and talented writer; I've seen the BBC production, Fortunes of War but have not read the books. I will add them to my to-do list. Here are my suggestions:

Lead

• I'd be inclined to merge the one-sentence lead paragraph with the second paragraph or, more likely, to add another sentence or two to give the paragraph some heft. Done
• In general, the lead, though well-written, is a bit skimpy for such a long article. I'd think about expanding it to four full paragraphs by including more about her personal life; for example, sex is not mentioned in the lead even though it appears many times in the main text sections. I'd also include more about the themes running through her work and the reactions of the critics; the "Themes" subsection isn't mentioned in the current lead. Done

• "Manning returned to London after the war and lived there until her death, writing poetry, short stories, novels, non-fiction, reviews, and drama for the BBC." - Spell out and link British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) here on first use?  Done

Early career

• "Miles, a well-respected and -connected literary advisor and translator in his late thirties... " - I'm not sure the punctuation works. Would "well-respected and connected... " be better?  Done
• "despite opposition from her mother, moved into a run-down bed-sitting room" - Wikilink bed-sitting?  Done
• '"but was sacked when she refused her boss' order to give up novel-writing in the evening" - Maybe boss's? Otherwise, when I read this sentence aloud, it sounds like "boss order".  Done I could have sworn "boss'" was right but not according to the MOS! Thank you.

Marriage and Romania

• "and Reggie's production of a Shakespeare play, in which she was promised a prime role that was given away to another." - Tighten by eliminating "away"? Just "a prime role that was given to another"?  Done

Greece and Egypt

• "On board with the Smiths were the novelist Robert Liddell, the Welsh poet Harold Edwards, and their wives– the Smiths sharing a cramped cabin with the Edwardses." - Spaced en dash?  Done
• ""My hand brought Reggie Smith to this strait bed- Well, fare his soul well, fear not I the dead". - Should this be ""My hand brought Reggie Smith to this strait bed / Well, fare his soul well, fear not I the dead". The spaced front slash is used as a separator between lines of poetry, but since I don't have the poem in front of me, I'm not sure about the hyphen. Oh, I see you've used them in the next paragraph but without spaces; those need spaces fore and aft.  Done The text does have a long dash.[2]; I hate dashes and hyphens.

Palestine

• "Manning never fully recovered from her loss, and was rarely to talk or write of it. She was unable to have further children and in the future transferred her maternal feelings towards animals and especially cats." - Maybe "directed" instead of "transferred"? Done

Post-war England

• "After a brief stay with her still grieving parents in heavily bombed Portsmouth, Manning moved into a London flat." - Link flat?  Done
• "Post war, both she and Reggie were unfaithful." - Maybe "Post-war" or "After the war"?  Done

Other works

• "Her post war works... " - Add a hyphen, post-war?  Done

Colonialism and imperialism

• "The Artist Among the Missing (1949), Manning illustrates the racial tensions that are created when imperialism and multiculturalism mix... " - Start the sentence with "In"?  Done
• "In these works, colonialist attitudes are reproduced by the stereotyping Catholic southerners as wild, primitive and undisciplined, while northerners live lives of well-ordered efficiency." - Does this mean "are reproduced through characters who stereotype Catholic southerners as wild, primitive and undisciplined and northerners as people who live lives of well-ordered efficiency"? Or do you mean that the author sees them in this way?  Done. It was the latter.

Displacement and "otherness"

• "... scholars note Manning's positioning of Romania as an exotic "other", a legacy of the Ottoman empire located the limits of civilized Europe... ". - Missing word, "at" before "the limits". Also, wikilink and cap Ottoman Empire?  Done
• "In keeping with colonial construction of exoticism in Western literature, however, "otherness" is increasingly domestified as characters recognise, with greater exposure to the country, links to Western culture." - "Domesticated" rather than "domestified"? Or do you mean "de-mystified"?  Done Yes, you are right, domesticated is the word.

Works

• "Rose of Rubies (1929) -as Jacob Morrow" - I'd uses spaced en dashes in this list rather than hyphens. Done

Notes

• The Manual of Style recommends "and" over the ampersand except when the ampersand is part of a formal name; e.g. "Braybrooke & Braybrooke" should be "Braybrooke and Braybrooke".

Note I'm not sure how to fix this. It seems to be automatic with the Harvard citations with two authors, but I'll look into it.

• I found it odd that early in the article Reggie is introduced as a Marxist and described as a Communist spy, and then these ideas disappear. Did his politics affect the couple in any way? Did it make any practical difference that the MI5 thought he was a spy? I think it would be good to flesh this out a bit. Done Thanks for the suggestion.

Other

• The lead image and the last two images need alt text. Done
• The dabfinder tool at the top of this review page finds one link (Axis) that goes to a disambiguation page instead of the intended target. Done

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog at WP:PR. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 04:26, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much for all these very useful suggestions. Sorry for the delay in responding; I've been distracted by life and other things, but will start working through your suggestions asap. --Slp1 (talk) 18:37, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I think I've worked through all your suggestions. Anything else you can think of? Thank you once again, and yes, do read the books. An epic that is definitely worth it!! --Slp1 (talk) 21:39, 27 March 2010 (UTC)